041. MODERN VIEW OF INSPIRATION

MODERN VIEW OF INSPIRATION Does this application of evolutionary principles to Scripture disprove its inspiration? Nay, it only makes its inspiration more plain. It requires less musical genius and organizing ability to train a single violinist to execute a solo than it does to make forty instruments play one great symphony. The more composite the authorship of Scripture, the stronger is the proof of one superintending divine Mind that combines the scattered biblia into one Bible. The modern view of inspiration delivers us indeed from some older conceptions of Scripture as a sort of ready reckoner, an oracle each of whose utterances apart from its connections is divine, a mechanical whole which accomplishes its purpose without our care or thought. The modern view sees in Scripture a grander inspiration than this,—an inspiration which, while it does not guarantee the inerrancy of Scripture in every historical and scientific detail, does yet make it, when taken together and when rightly interpreted, infallible for its purpose of communicating moral and religious truth, and able to make us wise unto salvation. And if ever a question arises whether the earlier teachings as to divorce or war or slavery represented the highest moral standard, we may judge them as parts of a progressively unfolding system whose key and culmination we find in Jesus Christ. "Moses said unto you" is followed by "But I say unto you." And yet Christ fulfills the law and the prophets by embodying in his life and teachings the essential spirit of the whole Old Testament revelation. He is the ripe fruit of which it was the seed and germ.

I have sometimes seen a charming view on the stereoptic screen interrupted by the gigantic shadow of the hand of an inexpert manipulator. So fifty years ago God’s great series of Scripture views, awe-inspiring as it was, lost a portion of its impressiveness by the intervention of some man-made theories of inspiration. Our generation distrusts the conclusions of many of the higher critics. But the higher criticism has achieved some positive results, and there can be no reasonable doubt that the principle of growth solves many of the previous difficulties of Holy Scripture. The same immanent Christ who moved in Hebrew history presided also over the history of inspiration. We have no need to doubt the supernatural element either in the world or in the Bible, so long as he is recognized as the animating and controlling force in both. Our modern theology has immensely gained in candor and insight by acknowledging that the same method of human growth which was adopted by the incarnate Word was also adopted in the production of the written word, and that both these manifestations of the immanent Christ consist with and throw light upon one another.

I have attempted in this hasty sketch to show the new advances toward scientific clearness and unity which theology has made during the past fifty years. I am well aware that some who have listened to me may regard my doctrine as more new than true. Further reflection will, I trust, convince them that what seem to be novelties of belief are after all only old truths of Scripture which the intense rays of modern science and philosophy have brought out from obscurity and have made visible. I have found these newly apprehended or newly emphasized truths to be: first, that God is immanent in his universe; secondly, that this immanent God is none other than Christ; thirdly, that Christ’s method is that of evolution; fourthly, that this evolution is characteristically and predominantly ethical; fifthly, that the ethical meaning of the universe is summed up in the historical Jesus; sixthly, that the central principle of this ethical system is the supremacy of righteousness in the nature of God; and, seventhly, that this principle of ethical development is to be applied to the understanding and interpretation of Holy Scripture.

I have hoped that this statement of the gains of the last half-century might answer a pacific purpose and might show us that some of the divisions of the past were needless and might now be healed. Let me quote to you a great utterance of the great Dollinger, the man who ventured greatly when he broke with the Roman Church and with all the traditions of the past in order to follow Christ and his convictions of Christ’s truth. His words are these: "Theology must become a science not, as heretofore, for making war, but for making peace, and thus bring about that reconciliation of churches for which the whole civilized world is longing." That Dollinger did not regard this reconciliation as attainable by mere outward union is plain from his founding of a new church. His exhortation is to the cultivation of a spirit rather than to the acceptance of a creed. Yet the spirit will lead to the creed. When we are ready to take truth even from heretics or from heathen, the bars will begin to fall and the churches will begin to see eye to eye. The new Free Church Catechism is proof that on all the great essentials our evangelical churches are already one. I seem to see already the first beams of the dawn. In its recognition of the universal presence and lordship of Christ our half-century has done much to hasten the answer to his prayer "that they all may be one." By his teachings and especially by his candid and gracious spirit, President Alvah Hovey has done his full share in promoting that unity. For our sakes may he be late in going into heaven! May his mantle fall on his successor in the presidential chair! May all we who teach catch something of his spirit! And may Christ our Lord, whose favor has so attended his servant, lead us also on, till we all attain "unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ "!